I feel like the Famicom/NES has three distinct eras, separated clearly by important games.>Early FamicomDonkey Kong - Mega Man (1983-1987)Games in this era usually had simple graphics and simple rules, usually without battery backup and with small sprites without outlines, and many games took place on a single screen without scrolling.>Middle FamicomMega Man - Super Mario Bros. 3 (1987-1988)Games in this era usually had much larger and more detailed sprites with outlines, more often had battery backup or passwords and had multiple levels and occasionally some real exploration. Massive JRPGs also showed up more frequently, with the first Final Fantasy appearing in this era.>Late FamicomSuper Mario Bros. 3 - Adventure Island IV (1988-1994)Peak complexity, a lot of games with battery backups and expansive worlds, more detailed sprites, and games that feel more like early SNES games than the Famicom games of 1983.Which era is your favorite? Do you disagree with where I delineated them?
Early Famicom ended in early to mid1986, with the disk system and mappers allowing bigger and different games. I'd also seperate 91 to 94, which outside of a few titles, corresponds to the "hands me down" era while the 16-bit generation was in full force, FC/NES games were targeted more to younger kids.
>>12801661All the windows feel remarkably arbitrary and oddly centered around titles that didn't invoke massive changes.
>>12801675>>12801661I'd probably have the first group cutoff be at some point in 1985, since around then is when you started to see more ambitious things, like SMB. A lot of the titles before were stripped down conversions of simple arcade games, and/or felt like souped up Atari games.
>>12801661>Massive JRPGs also showed up more frequently, with the first Final Fantasy appearing in this era.The two most important dates for JRPGs on the Famicom are probably January 87 with the release of DQ2, which I personally pintpoint to be the moment the JRPG craze started, and the first half of 1990 which had everyone release RPGs on the system around the release of DQ4 (including FF3 and Megami Tensei 2 among many others) and before the release of the SFC. Final Fantasy is important but it's nothing compared to DQThe release of the SFC really de-limits the late FC era, but since it took almost a whole year for the SFC to take its stride, for players to buy the machine and third parties to really support it; that's why I consider the late era to start in 91 and not at the exact moment the SFC released.
>>12801661Most retro console lifecycle can be divided in 3 Early phase with simplistic and very arcadey gameClassic phase where most of the big hit are releasedLast years phase with the hightest degree of sophistication Earlier
>>12801764I think that's really only the Famicom and Mega DriveSNES and PC Engine start out with a lot of the same type of stuff it would have later even with the CD add-on coming to the forefront for the latter
Revised:>Early eraDonkey Kong to The Legend of Zelda on FDS (1983-1986)>Middle EraThe Legend of Zelda to Super Mario Bros. 3 (1986-1988)>Late EraSuper Mario Bros. 3 to Metal Slader Glory (1988-1991)>Super Late EraMetal Slader Glory to Adventure Island IV (1991-1994)
>>12801832Nah PS1 is the same94-96 PS1 games are pretty simplistic and arcadey97-98 is when you got all the heavy hitter the games that are always present on a top 10 like FF7,MGS,Tekken 3, resident evil 2,symphony of the night...1999 to end of PS1 are very polished and impressive games like Vagrant story, crash team racing ,ff9...
>>12801764>Last years phase with the hightest degree of sophisticationI wish there was some kind of hack that cut down all the top-down bloat from Jurassic Park: Lost World (Genesis) and instead put you into the stages most people actually want to see.
In my opinion:"Good ol' days:" 1983-1985Middle: 1986-1989 (when FDS was released)Late: 1990-1994 (year Snezz was released)
>>12801708I'd say SMB was a middle-era style game firmly in the early era. Certainly, SMB1 shares more in common graphically with early titles. It has some seemingly-arbitrary limitations like one-way scrolling, that middle-era games didn't have.
>>12801661I can count at least 5 eras
